HOW WERE THEY SAVED ??

[dan p]

  Hi to all and on many   web  sites , many say that there is    ONLY  ONE  GOSPEL ?    Is that  true ??

In Rom 5:14 it reads  ,   But  death reigned  fro  Adam    until   Moses  , , even over  the ones    not   having sinned after  the  LIKENESS   of  Adam  , who is a  pattern  of the    coming  ONE  !!

So how were people  saved    FROM   Adan  until  Moses  ??

Is there a  Gospel  here ??

What is that  Gospel  called  ?

dan p

[th1b.taylor]

Yashuah ha:Mashiah said He was The Way.  Him, not being a liar, that is Satan, has stated there is one path and that is through Him.

[RB]

One of the most common questions unlearned Christians like to ask is: "When were you saved~HOW were you saved"? the questions assumes a person's eternal salvation is dependent on a personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as Savior at some specific point in time and certain requirements are NEEDED to be done BEFORE one is saved.

However, the Bible knows nothing about this kind of salvation. The Apostle Paul never once mentioned such a personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as savior in order to obtain eternal salvation.

However, Paul many times wrote of his salvation from sin. If we were to ask him the same question, "When were you saved?" he would tell us his salvation from sin occurred at five different times. Yes, that's right; Paul was delivered from sin in five different ways and at five different times. How do we know this? Simply by reading what the Apostle wrote in his epistles. By comparing the epistles of Paul, we see five different phases or aspects of God's glorious salvation from sin through our Lord Jesus Christ.

First, Paul would tell us that he was saved from sin before the world began. This is salvation from the plan of sin.

2nd Timothy 1:9~Who [God] hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Second, Paul would tell us that he was saved from sin when Christ Jesus died on the cross of Calvary. This is salvation from the penatly of sin.

1st Timothy 1:15~This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Third, Paul would tell us that he was saved from sin when the Holy Spirit regenerated him and gave him a new nature. This is salvation from the power of sin.

Titus 3:5~Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost"

Fourth, Paul would tell us that he was saved from sin whenever he kept in memory the gospel that he had preached. This is salvation from the practice of sin.

1st Corinthians 15:1,2~Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel ... by which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

Finally, Paul would tell us that he wasn't saved yet, but that he would be completely saved from sin some day in the future. This is salvation from the presence of sin.

Romans 13:11~And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

These five passages from the epistles of Paul illustrate the work of salvation from five different perspectives. These are the five phases of God's glorious salvation from sin through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[dan p]

  Hi and I will answer one of your points , on 1  Tim 1:15 , which ends as written in thr  KJV  , " of whom I am    CHIEF  !!

The Greek word used there is  PROTOS /  FIRST   is the correct meaning , is what I see !!

The  translation of   CHIEF   is a secondary  meaning and    DOES  not  fit the  CONTEXT  !!

Check again and see  that the Greek word   PROTO  is also used in 1  Tim 1:16  and that  Paul is the   PATTERN  of the  ones coming to believe on Him unto  everlasting  life  !!

Then  what is the  PATTERN  of  salvation that Paul is  talking  about  !!

The answer s then   How  was  Paul  saved  in Acts 9:6 ?

dan p

[3 Resurrections]

dan p  -  I, too, second RB's list of the different aspects of our salvation that take place prior to our final stage of salvation - which is our glorification in a resurrected body standing before our Creator.  But I also congratulate you on catching the sense of Paul's claim in I Timothy 1:15 that he was the "FIRST" of the sinners' group to be saved. 

You are on target that "chief of sinners" does not mean "the worst of sinners" in this verse.  Paul was the "FIRST" (protos) sinner because, as you noticed, Paul said he was to be the "PATTERN" (I Tim. 1:16) for those sinners who were "ABOUT TO BELIEVE" on Christ after him.  However, the deductions you are making from this word "FIRST" aren't quite what was intended by Paul.

It's not that salvation was of a different NATURE before Paul's conversion than afterwards - it's talking about a different PROPHETIC PERIOD that ended when Paul's ministry began.

If you are at all familiar with Daniel's 70-week prophecy as scripture presents it, then you realize that Christ confirmed the New Covenant with Daniel's people, the Jews, for ONE WEEK (7 years).  This last 70th week began with the start of Christ's public ministry in AD 30, and lasted until AD 37.

During His ministry, Christ Himself said that He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24).  It was only later that He commanded the disciples to go into ALL the world to preach.  The gospel started first from Jerusalem, then went to Judea, then to Samaria, and finally to the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).

The AD37 year was when Paul received his vision in the temple, with a commission from God to concentrate his ministry towards the Gentiles from then on.  Paul's miraculous conversion after seeing Christ on the road to Damascus provided the perfect "PATTERN" to the Gentiles of a formerly-alienated enemy of Christ (such as the Gentiles once were) turned into an equally-fervent believer in Christ after seeing the light from heaven. 

"GENTILES" are the "sinners" Paul is speaking about in his "chief of sinners" phrase. (See Galatians 2:15 - "...we who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles...").  So, Paul's verse to Timothy in reality can read that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save GENTILES, of whom I am the FIRST."  "FIRST" as the "PATTERN" for the Gentiles to follow in conversion after the 70-week prophecy period had come to an end in AD 37. 

Paul calls himself "a teacher of the Gentiles" specifically in I Timothy 2:7 -  of Gentiles that were "ABOUT TO BELIEVE" on Christ after the end of Daniel's last 70th week of evangelism which had been concentrated on the "lost sheep of the house of Israel".  So it's not a change in the NATURE of salvation in I Tim 1:15 - it's a change from the end of the last, 70th week of gospel concentrated on the Jews into a period when the gospel went mainly to the Gentiles of those days. 

Evidence of this is found in Acts 13:46-47.  "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, It was NECESSARY" (to fulfill the Daniel 9:27 prophecy of one week - 7 years - of confirming the New Covenant with the Jews) "that the word of God should FIRST have been spoken to you: but seeing that ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, LO, WE TURN TO THE GENTILES.  For so hath the Lord commanded us saying, I have set thee to be a light to the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth."

[dan p]

   Hi and let me   phrase  this way ,  How  was  Paul saved    OR    how were you saved  as Paul was the  PATTERN , IN 1 Tim 1:16  !!

Did  water  baptism save you ?

Does member ship   save you ?

Does  speaking in  Languages  save you ??

Does keeping the   10  commandments save you ??

dan p

[notreligus]

Dan, you've fallen for Mid-Acts Dispenationalism.

Do you believe Les Feldick's - a disciple of C.R. Stam - claim that the church will be raptured and the church will eternally be separated from Israel?   Feldick teaches that the church will remain on the planet called the New Jerusalem which will be like a satellite hovering over the New Earth

There is and has always has been one Gospel.

Paul's reference to "my gospel" refers to how he did not teach Christ the way that the circumcision represented Him.  The circumcision were demanding that Greeks be circumcised to be accepted by the Jews as part of the church.  Paul insisted that demanding that Greeks be circumcised was not the New Covenant plan.   Salvation is not by works or personal merit, but by what Christ had done to reconcile mankind - Jews and Greeks.   

[Choir Loft]

  Hi to all and on many   web  sites , many say that there is    ONLY  ONE  GOSPEL ?    Is that  true ??

In Rom 5:14 it reads  ,   But  death reigned  fro  Adam    until   Moses  , , even over  the ones    not   having sinned after  the  LIKENESS   of  Adam  , who is a  pattern  of the    coming  ONE  !!

So how were people  saved    FROM   Adan  until  Moses  ??

Is there a  Gospel  here ??

What is that  Gospel  called  ?

dan p

Most Christians have no idea what the gospel really is.   

I tip my hat to dan p because he has the awareness to invite an answer.  Most Christians don't know enough to ask the question.   

Protestants are so misinformed and uneducated they can only repeat buzz words and religious slogans.  For them, Church is a religious social club where they go to schmooze with people of the same economic social level.  In their minds and hearts, any chatter about Jesus Christ and the necessity to repent of sin and wickedness is irrelevant corn.   In their minds, the gospel is all about church membership.  If church folk believe and act this way is it any wonder the secular world has only a vague idea?

Consequently most Christians seem to think the gospel has something to do with going to heaven because they've joined a church.  They are saved because they recite familiar words and sing a catchy tune or two on Sunday morning.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Roman Catholic church has taught that membership is the primary requirement for salvation.  They've taught this nefarious doctrine for centuries.  Their gospel is that membership saves.  If you leave the church or are excommunicated you'll burn in hell.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Bible teaches that God accepts faith as righteousness sufficient to save.

Noah believed God would send a flood to drown the world and built an ark.  God accepted this faith as righteousness and saved Noah and his family from the flood.

By faith Abraham believed God and left his home to build a new life according to God's direction.  God accepted Abraham's faith as righteousness.   By faith Abraham obeyed God and presented his only son Isaac as a sacrifice.   God accepted Abraham's obedience and allowed a substitute sacrifice instead.

By faith Shadrach, Meschack and Abedneago walked with God in the midst of the fiery furnace.

By faith many others were found to be righteous in God's eyes.  Faith in God saves, not membership in a religious club.  Faith is celebrated in church, never established there. 

But all of this is not the entire gospel.......

There is yet a more wondrous revelation - a promise given by God to the prophets of old who never saw the day of its arrival.

But once again the church intervened to corrupt the message and to pervert the hope of ages into something akin to a carnival side show of twisted doctrine and perverse dogma it adapted from ancient Egypt and the mythology of Greece.

The gospel message is that faith in God (not the church) as righteousness AND that He has chosen to grant His immortal nature to those who accept His Son Jesus Christ.   Those that do not will suffer that which is their natural destiny.  They die.

The perversity of ancient myth I refer to is the doctrine of hell.   Nowhere in the Bible is such a dogma taught.   At the Final Judgment those that do not know God are sentenced to the Lake of Fire, which is the Second Death.   Those that know God will be granted eternal life.

The Second Death is total and complete destruction.  It is the natural extension of human existence.  God isn't vindictive and has not designed a diabolical torture chamber in the bowels of the earth.  God kills, but doesn't enjoy it as men do.   God does not torture as men are fond of doing. 

Eternal life is NOT a natural extension of human existence.  The false idea that there is an indestructible part of man that survives physical death originated in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.(ref: Greek historian Herodotus, Encyclopedia Brittanica)  The Bible states that man is mortal (Genesis 6:3) and that ONLY God is immortal (1 Timothy 6:16).

* THE GOSPEL is the Good News of God's provision of salvation by grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. 
* Having thus accepted God's sacrifice for sin, man is forgiven by God and comes to know God. 
* Personal knowledge of God results in the reward of the grant of eternal life at the Final Judgment.

THIS IS why the apostles were so excited by the resurrection.  Jesus proved life after death was possible.  It wasn't a myth.  It wasn't some vague doctrine taught by men who never worked for a living.  It is real and because of it early believers as well as those today were and are willing to risk their lives to tell the world the Good News.   Gospel means Good News.   Jesus taught that those who believe Him would inherit it.  By faith they shall.

THIS IS the hope of ancient peoples before Jesus Moses and Noah.  By faith they hoped for eternal life, but died having never seen a demonstration of it.  Those that knew Jesus in life saw it demonstrated and those of us who surrender to the lordship of Christ know it because it has already been accomplished.

Nowhere in the Bible is it said that church membership is a requirement for salvation at the Final Judgment.

Hope this helps.

that's me, hollering from the choir loft....     

[dan p]

  Hi and Paul was not the  "  OF  WHOM  I  AM  CHIEF  !!

Check the Greek text and it reads  "   OF  WHOM  I  AM  FIRST  "

Phil 3:4-6  says that Paul   BLAMELESS   under the  Law  , so why do they say Paul  was the  CHIEF  OF  SINNERS  ??

Many say that Adam had no    FAITH   as  Heb 11:4   begins with  Abel    and  NOT  with  Adam !!

Adam      WALKED  BE    SIGHT   as he  talked  with  Christ  in the  Garden !!

And Adam  had    FAITH   since  Christ   killed  and used the  skins to make  COATS  to  clothe them  and this is the first  time   ATONEMENT  for  SINS  is  seen  >

I would called this the  GOSPEL OF  SACRIFICE  that  continued under the  Law  of  Moses !!

dan p